Tag: The Last Season Of America

Seasick Steve returns with The Last Season Of America, a new collection of stirring protest songs and heartfelt reflections on the state of his home nation. Steve’s first release on new label Eastcote Recordings is available now on LP, CD and digital formats.

Last Season Of America was produced by Grammy Award-winner Martin Terefe at Eastcote Studios in London. For the recording, Steve and his longtime drummer Dan Magnusson were joined by guitarist Dave Okumu (The Invisible), while Terefe added bass guitar.

Guatemalan superstar Ricardo Arjona, one of the best-selling Latin American artists of all time, guests on new single, ‘El Camino’, the hauntingly beautiful album centrepiece. Reflecting on the track, Steve plainly says, “ahhh old friends and best wishes my brother! Tal vez nos vemos“.

Seasick Steve’s rise from journeyman musician to producing records for Kathleen Hanna and Modest Mouse in 90s Seattle to selling over 2m records and appearing five times at Glastonbury Festival is the stuff of legend. 2026 marks twenty years since his astonishing TV debut on Jools Holland’s BBC Hootenanny on New Year’s Eve 2006 where Steve’s performance of ‘Dog House Boogie’ on a beat up 3-string guitar and old wooden stomp box caught the attention of music lovers across the world.

In 2024, Steve and his wife Elisabeth took a road trip across America where he witnessed the poverty and divisiveness in the context of the upcoming election. “We drove across the country from Miami to LA”, he recalls. “We thought we was gonna have an amazing time but we were mostly sad, so much homelessness and division.”

They were in a New Orleans club where a house band leader welcomed two Belgian musicians on stage by saying “welcome to the last season of America.” This became the theme for the rest of their road trip and led to him writing the album’s poignant title track.

Viscerally documenting an American Dream coming apart at the seams, The Last Season Of America is a protest record in the truest sense. The simmering ‘Somebody’ laments the looming uncertainty on what there is to be done at such a trepidatious moment, while ‘Bad Things’ takes aim at a certain venal and schismatic politician. “We got a criminal running this place. He got lies written all over his face”, sings Steve. (“I guess it ain’t too hard to guess, right?” he says of the subject of his ire.)

The burning blues of ‘Bootstraps’ assesses the narrowing aperture of class mobility; “I always keep in my billfold a two dollar bill / You never know when your luck will change and you be down and out / there ain’t no sense in praying to heaven / no sense to scream and shout“.

Yet, throughout The Last Season Of America, there is optimism amid Steve’s righteous anger: “There’s bad things, but we still can change. If you believe in hope, we can rearrange. I still believe in the power of love”.

Though now living in Norway – a purposeful attempt to create physical distance from the country whose state of affairs gets harder to watch by the day – Steve’s love for his home country remains. Though this protest record seethes with sadness and anger, it ultimately casts a hopeful glance at the horizon, anticipating a brighter future to come. Much like Steve’s longstanding and winding career, his message and voice have an enduring, timeless power.

Steve’s musical journey began as a boy in the 1950s, hearing his fathers 78’s of artists like The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, The Nat King Cole Trio, Jelly Roll Morton, and the great Louis Armstrong. From the early days of Country, there was Hank Williams, Left Frezzell, and Patsy Cline, and later on came the sounds of Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, and early 60’s Doo Wop and Motown. However, Steve’s real revelation and deep connection to the Blues came in the mid ’60’s when he saw live performances from legends including Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell, the Reverend Gary Davis, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and Lightnin’ Hopkins, forever changing his life. Later the same decade, Steve saw Otis Redding, James Brown, Bo Diddly, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, The Doors, Janis Joplin , Sly and The Family Stone and so many of the great 60’s bands. All of these deep influences have led him musically to where he is today.

Artist’s website: https://www.seasicksteve.com/

‘The Last Season Of America’ – official video: